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Suggestions on new workstation build

Question asked by Eric Smith on Mar 11, 2009
Latest reply on Mar 17, 2009 by Luke Gierach

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I need to build a new CAD workstation for my boss. We using Solidworks 2009, and have several very large assemblies that we need to work with. I am looking for you suggestions and critiques on the system I have came up with. I realize some of the components I have picked out are new technology and therefore, we will pay a premium. I am looking to build a screaming and very stable system for him, money is (as it always is) an issue - but we have spent about 4k on workstations in the past, so that is my target.

What im looking at:

GPU - Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 965 Nehalem 3.2GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor

RAM - CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory

PSU - CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply

VIDEO CARD - (2X - SLI CONFIGURED) PNY VCQFX3700-PCIE-PB Quadro FX3700 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Supported Workstation Video Card

HARD DRIVE - (2X - RAID 0 CONFIGURED) Intel® X25-E Extreme High Performance Solid State Disk (SSD) - 32GB, SLC flash technology, 2.5 form factor, SATA (3.0Gb/s)

MOTHERBOARD - ASUS P6T Deluxe LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard

CASE - Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

I realize I am missing a few components, but the majority is here.

Thoughts, suggestions?

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16 Replies

Anna Wood Mar 11, 2009 3:38 AM
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Don't bother with the two video cards set up in SLI Frame Rendering mode. SW does not take advantage of it.

However if you want you could set up SLI MultiView.

See definitions below

SLI Frame Rendering - two cards to one monitor. Requires the SLI connector. SW does not take advantage of SLI Frame Rendering.

SLI Multiview - two cards/two monitors, each card running their own monitor. Does not require SLI connector and is supported on the FX570 and all the current Nvidia offerings.

I would also go with WD VelociRaptors in a RAID 0 set-up instead. I am still not convinced on the speed or reliability of SSD. Lots of money for the performance increase, if any. The WD's are well proven for speed and reliability.

If you are saving your files to the network way bother with the SSD drives, other then being able to launch Windows and SW quickly. Those are not likely your slow downs during the day.

I am very happy with my Core i7 system. It is very fast and a pleasure to work with.

Cheers,
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Neil Larsen Mar 11, 2009 7:22 AM
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in addition to anna's graphics and hd advice
I would consider going for a i7-920 and overclocking just a little say to 3ghz for similar sort of performance but saving quite a bit of money.
not everyone would be happy doing that though
possibly you could go for a 600W power supply too..

wish I had 4k to spend on a workstn even in affluent times
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- Bruce Fisher @ Neil Larsen on Mar 11, 2009 8:24 AM
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  I agree with Anna's comments about the drives. From what I read, the SS drives don't offer much if any performance gain and they're much more expensive. I have several machines with Raptor drives in RAID 0, and am happy with the performance/reliabilty.
  
  For the price you're talking, you could have a machine built with pretty much the same components but you'd also get a warranty. XI among others would be a place to look, and they offer some overclocking options.
  
  Good Luck
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  - Eric Smith @ Bruce Fisher on Mar 11, 2009 11:23 AM
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    Anna,
    
    Thanks for the suggestions. I was wondering if the dual cards would give us and performance increase - but did it because i see you workstation has dual cards in it, and is currently the highest on your benchmark test. Would you think a single FX 4800 would be a better choice? (Just for reference, we MOSTLY deal with large assemblies (70%) - drawings (25%) - FEA (5%))
    
    As for the SSD drives - This is where I was kind of torn. I have heard a lot of both sides. I am kind of gun-shy about putting the into a workstation that we depend on day in and day out, but the ones I picked out are top notch and have had several great reviews - so i though I would throw it out there and see what you guys had to say. I suppose if I am really looking for speed and reliability, I could buy 5 Raptor 10,000 RPM drives and throw them in a RAID 5 array - get the speed and redundancy benefits - and at half the cost.
    
    Neil - Good point. I am really not the biggest fan of O.C.ing my workstations, just because of the stress put on them when it is done. I realize a lot of processors (cooled properly) can O.C. just fine and never have a problem.... I am just hesitant - perhapse I will try it with a good aftermarket cooler.
    
    As for a warranty from XI - I prefer to build my own and save the premium a company like XI would charge. I have been building systems for several years (servers, workstations and gaming computers) - along with a couple here at work. I appreciate the suggestion, but My bosses prefer me to build them - so I guess that's the way Im going to do it.
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    - Eric Smith @ Eric Smith on Mar 11, 2009 11:27 AM
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      Also,
      
      I will be running XP 64-bit. I realize this is kind of an "orphan" OS. Are there any huge performance increases to be seen when using Vista 64-bit?? My bosses are extremely against Vista (due to it's history) - even though neither of them have used it or have any real experience with it. I would be interested to see the performance differences - I would also need to look into the implications of having Vista 64-bit authenticate to our 2k3 domain. I would think they would be able to mesh relatively easy, but it would be another issue I would have to look into IF the performance increases are even worth it.
      
      Thanks for all your help!
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    - Anna Wood @ Eric Smith on Mar 11, 2009 3:26 PM
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      Graphics cards are only a small part of the SW workstation performance. I would never buy a real high end card. For the work we do it is way overkill. Put the money into a cpu.
      
      My dual FX570's is an experiment in SLI Multiview which I haven't completed because I only have one monitor hooked up. The other card is collecting dust in the box.
      
      If you have average size assemblies with average amount of facets then a FX570, FX1700 or FX3700 will serve you well. Others have had good results with two FX1700's driving two monitors. I can't give you quantitative numbers though.
      
      Look in the performance section there are recent threads on video card performance.
      
      Cheers,
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Luke Gierach Mar 11, 2009 11:52 AM
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For what its worth...we just recently purchased an XI system...just like you are looking at building. The cost through XI was about $4300 and I spec'd out the parts individually for personal building and it would be approximately $3500. The biggest question then becomes what is my time worth to put such a pc together and configure the raid and install the OS with all of the updates etc. I dont know how long that would take, but if you assume $50 an hour it better take less than 16 hours
For us the extra money with warranty was money well spent.

My 2 cents on the OS...as far as I can tell there isnt a significant performance difference between XP and Vista 64bit...the difference comes in stability. Supposedly the Vista OS is superior in stability due to the increased number of current drivers available for all current hardware...like your video card, and space navigator if you have one, and printer drivers.
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- Phil Marra @ Luke Gierach on Mar 11, 2009 2:34 PM
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  Lucas,
  
  Also worth mentioning is the warranty you get when purchasing a built system. For some that is worth the extra cost.
  
  Having stated that I would have cautioned you on the XI purchase. My dealings with them were horrible and as for their on "site warranty" it dosnt exist so be prepared. At least it didnt for my purchase and I live on the East Coast. (They on the West)
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  - Jay Andrews @ Phil Marra on Mar 11, 2009 3:24 PM
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    Just to be clear, on a self built system ,there should also be a warranty on each component, so you are not losing a warranty on the parts.
    
    Also, just a consensus that I have gathered is that if 64bit, go with vista not xp.
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- 1-I7AP5K @ Luke Gierach on Mar 11, 2009 3:42 PM
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  Luke Gierach wrote:
  
  My 2 cents on the OS...as far as I can tell there isnt a significant performance difference between XP and Vista 64bit...the difference comes in stability. Supposedly the Vista OS is superior in stability due to the increased number of current drivers available for all current hardware...like your video card, and space navigator if you have one, and printer drivers.
  
  I installed XP64 about a month ago and have yet to have crash #1, so I doubt that XP64 has much of a stability problem. As far as drivers go, many manufacturers use the same drivers for XP64 and Vista 64. The 64-bit system (Dell) and video drivers (Nvidia) were all available, but we have a number of old printers in the office and I was unable to get 64-bit drivers that work for any of the HPs or our dinosaur plotter (which doesn't work with SW anyway). I was also unable to get a 64-bit driver to run all the buttons on my very-old mouse, but the built-in XP mouse driver works fine. I just don't have use of the extra buttons, which SW always disabled anyway. Summary: The transition to XP64 was pretty painless and I didn't have to learn and customize a whole new operator interface.
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  - Eric Smith @ 1-I7AP5K on Mar 11, 2009 3:59 PM
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    Ray,
    
    Well all our workstations are current XP 64-bit, so I have been supporting that OS for about 2 years now. I am in the same boat as you - most drivers are easily found...
    
    Alright - well thank you all for your suggestions - I will probably come up with a system sometime this afternoon, taking mostly all your suggestions.
    
    Thanks again!
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    - Jay Andrews @ Eric Smith on Mar 11, 2009 4:22 PM
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      Come to think of it on the drivers, here at work I have xp64 and am 0 for 1 on driver quality, that is my printer driver has way less options than the everybody else's in my office, iirc I had 3 tabs of options, other OS's had 7 tabs. And the option I didn't have was print as black. Seriously, it was annoying.
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Tom Nicholson Mar 11, 2009 4:19 PM
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Ray, from what it looks like, your using SW2K7.. There have been plenty of problems posted here with 2k8+ not being friendly with XP64, which Phil is using.. And also, if your going to build a new system these days, unless you have some legacy software that will just not run with Vista, there's no reason to install XP as its a dying breed..Now, with Win7 right around the corner too, it might not be worth installing vista, so.. I guess its to each their own on this battle. I personally would go with vista64 bit..
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Joe Rochinski Mar 16, 2009 7:44 PM
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Forgive me if someone has said this already as I don't have time to read through all the responses, but you should also bear in mind that solid state drives "wear out". Each sector of the disk can only be written to a finite number of times. As technology improves the number of writes before failure keeps getting higher, but the problem is significant enough that specialized disk controllers have been developed which will spread rewrites across the entirety of the disk so that the solid state disk "wears" evenly.

I work with assemblies which flirt with 1GB in size, and probably save them to disk 15 times a day. This type of work would wear out a SS drive in a hurry.

As others have suggested, I would go with the WD Raptors.
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Valentin Leung Mar 17, 2009 8:27 AM
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To add to what Joe says, SSD have a another issue, through time, their performance drop, the only solution is to rewrite 0 to all sectors to kind of "reset" the drive. Many specialized website have reported this issue.

What you may also try if pure performance is the only objective: Try the ACARD RAM drive. A SSD based on drive, the strongest performance, but don't forget the volatility of the RAM. There is a battery on the device to save data through time from power shortage though.
They can support up to 32 GB (64 with 8GB RAM stick). The price is overwhelming though.

In my opinion, like the others, you can go for velociraptors in RAID. You can also try to short stroke the drive, ie to use 33% of the available space at the beginning of the disk. The performance can jump dramatically this way.
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Luke Gierach Mar 17, 2009 11:10 AM
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Decent write up by MaximumPC on SSD's
http://www.maximumpc.com/artic...er_solid_state_drives
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